Flips: The Bubonic Builders Review

The second installment in the DSiWare Flips series, just as skippable as the first.

Electronic Arts' new digital book brand, "Flips," made its debut on DSiWare in America last week with Flips: Terror in Cubicle Four. I thought the foundation of that release was solid -- the page-turning mechanics were good, having some words trigger interactive sight and sound events was good. But the book itself, Terror in Cubicle Four, wasn't all that exciting. My ultimate opinion was to skip it, but I said I'd be ready to pay attention and re-assess that recommendation if the company got a better book to read inside this interface.

Well, they didn't. Not yet, at least. "The Bubonic Builders" is just another young adult novel from the same Europe-based "Too Ghoul for School" series that tosses around British slang like it's dialogue from a Harry Potter movie. This one's about some workmen who show up at good old St. Sebastian's, where more hilarity ensues with the same trio of protagonists from the first release.

So my Skip It rating's going to stay in place for now, and it'll likely be there for a while -- EA's already announced that at least four more "Too Ghoul for School" Flips books will be showing up in the DSi Shop in the coming weeks and months, as the company continues to break apart the original Flips retail release that intially contained eight different books from the series.

The Verdict

The only good thing about that is that if you do take a chance on one of these and really fall in love with it, there'll be lots more where it came from.